


bring me to life

by ceruleancats



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Library, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Canon Asexual Character, Comedy, Gen, Getting Together, Humor, M/M, Mystery, Or at least elements of it, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Tags May Change, work enemies to lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-16 01:01:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29323623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ceruleancats/pseuds/ceruleancats
Summary: Jon, Head Librarian of the Magnus Library, used to have it all: fun and competent coworkers, pretty good hours, reasonably okay benefits, the works. Until his boss decided to hire the worst employee of all time, also known as Martin Blackwood. Now he has to figure out how to deal with Martin, as well as get to the bottom of why the hell he keeps feeling so...fond of the most irritating man he’s ever met.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Sasha James & Tim Stoker
Comments: 22
Kudos: 58





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Trying something new here! I've never done a no-powers AU before, so we'll see how it goes. Yes, the title is from the song by Evanescence because I think it's hilarious.
> 
> Please enjoy the first chapter, and let me know what you think (if you're so inclined)! <3

Jon stormed up the marble steps and through the ridiculously ostentatious doors of the Magnus Library with murder on his mind. 

He was going to kill Martin Blackwood.

Okay, not really. But come _on_. The man had been hired three days ago and already he had managed to misshelve several dozen books, scare a child during Storytime, and spill tea all over the break room floor so that the carpet now smelled overpoweringly of Earl Grey.

And now, instead of enjoying his usual Thursday morning off with a book and a nice cup of non-Earl Grey tea, he was here at the library, summoned by a vague yet chilling text from Tim that said nothing more than "hey jon u should probably come in there's been another Martin Incident." Jon had asked for elaboration, but none had been forthcoming, so Tim was either dead, or dealing with whatever the Incident was. Dead was more likely, given that no one around this godforsaken place but Jon was ever responsible enough to deal with things.

Being Head Librarian was a crushing burden and life was a nightmare, Jon reflected as he hurried toward his office, trying not to think too hard about what sort of Incident would be serious enough to warrant texting him on his off morning, which Tim and Sasha both knew full well was off limits except in the case of major emergencies.

Tim ambushed Jon right as he rounded the corner near his office door, which made Jon jump approximately half a meter due to the sheer volume of adrenaline currently circulating in his veins. 

"Jesus Christ, Tim!" Jon said, leaning against the wall for a second as he tried not to black out from stress.

"Sorry, boss!" Tim said, sounding cheerfully not at all sorry. "I just wanted to catch you before you got to Martin. Don't be too hard on him, okay? He's really trying, you know?"

"Tim," Jon said slowly and carefully through his gritted teeth, "would you like to tell me what exactly Martin has done this time?"

"I would absolutely love to do that, Jon, but I just remembered that I have this whole cart of books that _really_ needs shelving, right now. So sorry!" The apology came as a loud stage whisper, as Tim had been backing up as he was speaking and was now several meters away. 

"I don't even know where Martin is!" Jon hissed back urgently.

"Break room!" Tim mouthed back, and then turned tail and power-walked behind one of the shelves. (Jon had a very strict no-running rule.)

Jon added Tim to today's mental kill list and allowed himself 15 seconds of staring furiously at the ceiling, before taking a deep breath and making his way over to the break room.

He heard the Incident before he saw it, and he must have heard wrong, because there was no way he was hearing _barking_ in his library. 

Jon turned the handle of the break room door, filled with righteous fury.

And there it was. A goddamn dog, in his library. And not a well-behaved, clearly-marked service dog, either, because that would've been fine. No, this was some kind of giant mop-like creature, if mops were sentient and weighed something like 100kg. 

Martin looked up from where he was caressing the thing's shaggy shoulder and looked immediately guilty.

"I—" he started.

"Martin," Jon interjected in his most managerial tone.

Martin quailed.

"Martin, why is there a—well, I hesitate to call that thing a dog, but—why is there a dog in my library?"

"Well, um, so, here's the thing," Martin said, studiously avoiding Jon's eyes. "So, she was wandering around outside when I got here, and she didn't have a collar or anything, and she just looked so lonely, and she came up to me and I thought maybe I could keep her in here until the end of my shift, I promise she's really well...behaved…" 

Martin's gaze had finally left the floor and presumably landed upon Jon's extremely unamused expression, because he trailed off into a guilty silence and gave Jon an extremely pained rendition of a smile.

"Martin, we cannot have feral dogs in the library. I feel as if this would be common sense for anyone else, but let me spell it out for you: they're gross, they're dirty, they're a danger to the books and to the patrons, and we have no idea if they're toilet-trained."

"I take it you're a cat person," Martin said weakly, and then immediately clapped his hands over his mouth like he couldn't believe he'd just said that out loud.

Jon couldn't believe it either. And somehow, in his shock at the gall of it all, he let out a tiny chuckle. 

What the hell was wrong with him? This was not funny! Enormous, allegedly dog-like entities were _not_ allowed in the library! This was no laughing matter!

Martin looked similarly confused that his terrible, disrespectful quip had somehow worked, and was now staring at Jon quizzically.

Jon scrambled to reassert his authority before anything worse happened. 

"That dog needs to be removed from the premises right now, and this will be a permanent disciplinary mark in your file," Jon snapped. He was reasonably sure the Magnus Library had no such thing as disciplinary files, but it was the thought that counted.

"Right, yes, I'm really sorry about this, Jon," Martin said meekly. "I know it hasn't been the...smoothest week, and I hope I haven't caused too much trouble…"

Jon sighed deeply and valiantly refrained from putting his face in his hands. "Don't worry about it, Martin. Just get that thing out of here, please," he said, waving off Martin's awkward apologies. 

"Okay! Yes, sorry, going right now," Martin said, and Jon stepped out of the way of the door as Martin carefully shooed the dog-thing ahead of him with one hand back on its shoulder.

Jon watched his progress through the shelves and eventually out of sight somewhat distractedly, as most of his attention was turned inwards, attempting to parse out the strange emotion he was currently feeling. If he had to guess, he might say it was...affection.

But that made no damn sense! Martin had just wrecked his morning off and brought Jon's least favorite animal into the library. And that wasn't even counting all the other Incidents this week! Jon hardly knew the man, and what he did know was mostly that Martin was extremely good at causing problems and making Jon want to rip his hair out.

After another minute or so of contemplation, Jon gave up and applied his patented solution for whenever he was upset or confused by a feeling, which was to repress it and never think about it again. Perfect. He was probably going to end up firing Martin soon anyway, so no point in wasting time trying to understand whatever that misfired neuron had been.

His emotional state thus solved, Jon exited the break room and made his way to his office to check his emails. Those were always a great distraction. He would get Sasha or Tim to check on Martin later and make sure he'd actually gotten rid of the dog. 

While he was logging onto his computer, the hairs at the back of Jon's neck started pricking weirdly, like someone was watching him. Jon narrowed his eyes and strained his neck to see through the small window at the top of his office door, but the hallway outside was empty. 

Huh, creepy. Probably just some weird aftereffect of his emotionally turbulent morning, though.

The prickling sensation eased and then vanished entirely, so Jon shrugged and opened the first of his 50 plus unread emails (how he got that volume of emails in less than half a day was an ongoing mystery), which just so happened to be an angry tirade from the father of the child Martin had terrorized during Storytime. 

This was going to be a fun Thursday morning.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you guys enjoy this chapter! If I misused British slang or accidentally used American words/expressions, I'm very sorry, and here's the thing: I'm American and also very lazy.

The morning after the Dog Incident, as he had decided to refer to it mentally, Jon was busy going through a fraction of the endless emails that had piled up overnight when there was a quiet, almost shy knock on his office door. 

Sasha always knocked sharply three times and Tim usually just burst in since he had no concept of personal space or general decorum, so presumably this was Martin. Great.

“Yes, come in!” Jon called, hoping the deep disdain and dread he was currently feeling wouldn’t seep into his tone too much. 

Indeed, it was Martin. Score one for Jon’s deductive skills, score negative several hundred for his productivity for the rest of the day. 

“Um, hi, Jon,” Martin said, only stuttering a little. He thrust something out at Jon aggressively enough that Jon almost jumped backwards (he was slightly on edge from the, oh, literally everything that Martin had done this week), which turned out to be a mug of what looked like tea. 

Jon stared at the tea blankly.

Martin, looking immediately uncomfortable, hastened to explain. “I—Well, I just wanted to make you a nice cuppa to make up for, um, the thing yesterday with the dog. And, y’know, the whole...rest...of the week. Sorry again about all that. I know it’s been a bit of a...rough adjustment period, and I didn’t mean to make more work for you. Sorry. Oh, sorry, I already apologized, didn’t I?”

Jon stood up and grabbed the tea out of Martin’s hands before he could spiral further into some kind of positive feedback loop of apologies. 

“Thank you, Martin, I appreciate it.” Which wasn’t actually a lie, come to think of it. It was kind of Martin to make him tea, and sort of adorable, in a slightly pathetic way—Oh Christ, he was doing it again! No! One cup of tea in no way made up for the week of headaches Martin had already induced and probably would continue to cause for the rest of the time he was employed. 

Jon shook his head to escape his own mental spiral and hoped he hadn’t been staring at Martin like an insane person or something.

Except he must have been, because Martin was now studying him somewhat awkwardly with his head cocked to the side.

“I—um, have work to do!” Jon burst out, not at all panicking. “I mean, thanks for the tea, but I do have a large amount of emails to answer, and I’m sure Tim and Sasha are eager to teach you some more about how things work around here, so…”

“Oh, right, of course,” Martin said, already backing away apologetically. “Yep, emails! So annoying. Uh. Yeah, I’m just going to be going now.” 

With that, Martin practically bolted the last few steps out of Jon’s office and closed the door slightly harder than necessary behind him.

Jesus Christ.

Jon sank heavily back into his chair and stared unseeingly at his monitor full of unread emails while he considered what the fuck was going on with his brain. He was normally so logical, right? So this man who was well on his way to giving Jon an ulcer in the mere days he’d been at the library—logically, Jon should hate him, or at least be extremely irritated by his presence. Right? And yes, Jon was definitely feeling no small amount of irritation, but there was also this weird sense of _affection_ , which made no goddamn sense! And the conversation that they’d just had. Jon was a little awkward in social situations sometimes, yes, but what had that been?

Okay, he didn’t have time for all this overthinking. Probably Jon was just so stressed out by all the problems Martin had been causing that his brain was completely scrambled and mistaking the feeling of disgust for affection. Yep, that was definitely it. 

Jon reached for his mouse to go back to slogging through emails and rediscovered the tea he was still holding. Oh, yeah. Well, it probably wouldn’t hurt to at least try it, even if Jon did have a very particular taste in tea.

Jon took a sip. 

Hot damn. If anyone else had been in the office, they’d have laughed at his comically wide eyes right now. The tea was _good_ , really good, actually. Huh. Maybe Martin was good for one thing after all, he thought, and then immediately felt bad for thinking it. Wait, why was he feeling bad? This literally was the only thing Martin had been good at so far! Ugh. 

Emails! Jon was checking emails! And repressing any thoughts and/or weird feelings about his infuriating new hire. 

He put the tea down on his desk and directed his full attention to his monitor. Huh, the next email was actually kind of interesting, in an extremely weird way. Some woman wanted to know if the library had any books on ghosts or strange experiences in graveyards because her dead fiance had “appeared to her when she was lost in a foggy graveyard and helped her escape the fog before she was lost forever.” Honestly, not the weirdest email Jon had ever gotten, but it was up there. 

Jon was writing up a reply to the woman that yes, obviously they had books on ghosts and likely ones about strange graveyard experiences, too (though they’d be found in the fiction section because ghosts weren’t real), when he was distracted by the sound of something beeping. 

It was faint enough that he hadn’t even noticed it until he’d paused typing to figure out how to politely word the fact that ghosts aren't real, idiot, but now that he was listening for it, it was definitely there, a series of short, flat notes spaced a second or two apart. And of course, now that he _had_ noticed it, Jon’s brain latched onto the sound, and it was drilling into his ears obnoxiously enough that he gave up on the sentence he was workshopping (“The caveat is that all relevant books will likely be found in the fiction section, given that ghosts are not at all real, and in that regard, I think you should probably see a psychiatrist.”) and started trying to pinpoint where it was coming from. 

Probably not his office, because it was so quiet. Maybe somewhere out in the hallway? 

Jon dragged himself reluctantly from his chair and peeked out into the hallway. The beeping was just slightly louder out here. So this was going to be an excruciating game of warmer-colder, wasn’t it. Just the perfect Friday morning activity. 

He made his way down the hallway towards the library proper, and the beeping again increased minutely in volume. Well, probably. It was incredibly hard to tell, still just at the edge of his hearing. 

He checked the breakroom: quieter. Near the restroom: slightly louder. Weaved his way through the adult stacks, the young adult section, the children’s section. The volume of the beeping seemed to vary only from almost silent to moderately quiet, meaning that Jon never really got anywhere near where it was coming from. 

By the time he literally bumped into Sasha on his way to the front of the library from the children’s section, Jon felt like he was going somewhat crazy. 

“Oh, hey, Jon,” Sasha said, reaching out to steady him, “what’s going on?”

“Please tell me you hear it, too,” Jon said, grabbing onto her hand desperately. 

“I’m not sure what you’re talking about,” Sasha told him, and then seemed to take in his likely rather disheveled appearance, caused by power-walking around the library on a fruitless quest for the past ten minutes and running his fingers angrily through his hair approximately every 20 seconds. “Wait, are you okay?”

“Mostly,” Jon said, patting her hand in a manner he hoped was reassuring. “But you really don’t hear that? The beeping noise? It’s been going for quite a while now, and I can’t figure out where it’s coming from.”

Sasha tilted her head sideways and narrowed her eyes. “Oh, you’re right, there is some kind of beeping. Hm, that’s strange. Where have you checked already?”

Jon informed her of his circuitous journey through most of the library. 

Sasha nodded. “Well, let’s do this thoroughly. You haven’t checked the back rooms yet, right? Or near the front desk?”

“No, but it was louder towards the main area of the library, so I don’t think it’s in the back rooms. I think. Honestly the volume hasn’t changed much no matter where I’ve checked, which is why I haven’t been able to figure it out. I don’t know if you noticed, but it’s begun to drive me a bit crazy.”

“Oh, I’ve noticed,” Sasha said, because she was an awful, unsupportive employee. “Here, I’ll check the back rooms, you check around the front desk. I’ll text you if I figure it out.” Okay, maybe she wasn’t _that_ terrible of an employee.

“Thanks, Sasha. It’s just been somewhat of a rough week.” Fucking understatement, but Jon was trying to be civil.

Sasha smiled wryly. “Yeah, hasn’t been the smoothest onboarding ever, has it?”

“No, no it has not,” Jon agreed. “I think I might talk to Elias, figure out if I can maybe...let him go. Get him transferred to another branch, at least.”

“Jon!” Sasha cried admonishingly.

Jon shushed her.

“Jon!” Sasha whispered. “Come on, you _just_ hired him. It’s only been a week. Maybe it hasn’t been totally smooth, but he seems like such a nice guy! You should give him a chance.”

“I’ve given him four and a half days of chances, and so far, all I have are a bunch of problems,” Jon argued. “And speaking of problems, this beeping is another one, so I am going to endeavor to solve it before I lose my damn mind.”

Sasha sighed. “All right, fine, but this conversation isn’t over. Not everyone’s as perfect as you are, Jon,” she said with a wink, and then set off in the direction of the back rooms. 

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. The sound pounded against his skull as Jon approached the circulation desk, getting louder. At least that was promising. 

He exchanged a quick nod of greeting with Rosie where she was manning the checkout area, then cast his gaze around, looking for anything that could be causing the beeping. Apparently Rosie either hadn’t noticed the noise or just didn’t care, and it was seeming a lot like the latter, because it was significantly more piercing over here. 

“Rosie, don’t you hear that?” Jon asked her, resisting the urge to plug his ears with his fingers. 

“What? Oh, the beeping. Yeah, that’s just the smoke alarm. It does that.”

Jon looked up at the ceiling, and sure enough, there was a smoke alarm, innocently blinking its red out-of-battery light in time with the beeps. Little bastard. 

“Doesn’t it...bother you?” Jon asked, slightly flummoxed.

“Eh, not really. It needs two D batteries or something, and we never seem to have those around.” 

Jon pinched the bridge of his nose. Maybe if he pinched hard enough his beep-induced headache would magically disappear, and also people in his vicinity would consider doing logical things like calling the maintenance people. 

“I’ll call the maintenance people,” Jon said, since several seconds had passed and Rosie had not volunteered the idea.

“Sure,” Rosie said agreeably, “that’s probably a good idea.” 

Yes. No fucking kidding. 

Once the maintenance people were called, they made quick work of changing the detector’s batteries, and after Jon texted Sasha to let her know all was resolved, he was finally able to get back to his stupid ghost sighting email. 

_The caveat is that all relevant books will likely be found in the fiction section, given that ghosts are not at all real, and in that regard, I think you should probably see a psychiatrist._

Actually, that was perfect. 

Jon slapped on a Sincerely and his signature, hit send, and took a sip of tea almost automatically. It was ice cold. 

Typical.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to Chapter 3! Please enjoy Jon's crusade against poetry as a genre, and lmk your fave part if you're feeling it :)

From that day forward, Martin brought Jon tea every morning. 

From what Jon could figure, it seemed to be some sort of repentance for how terrible Martin knew he’d made the first week of his employment. But the tea was amazing every time, so Jon didn’t really care if Martin was giving it out of some deep sense of shame or debilitating guilt as long as he kept bringing it. It was possible this made Jon a bad person. He was working on it.

Anyway, though the daily tea ritual continued, with (thank Christ) significantly less awkwardness than the first time, the daily tally Jon kept of all the times Martin fucked up and made his life harder in some way, shape, or form decreased significantly to the point at which Martin was averaging only one major fuck up a day. This made him a lot easier to be around, since Jon was no longer suffused with irritation every time he looked at Martin. However, this also meant that the confusing underlying feeling of...affection...that tended to bubble up on such occasions could no longer be shoved under Jon’s metaphorical rug of annoyance and ignored. Not that Jon wasn’t still trying. He wouldn’t be himself if he wasn’t blindingly stubborn, right?

Basically, all this meant that, even if he wouldn’t admit it to himself, Jon now looked forward to his morning tea delivery from Martin. And today Martin was late. 

Whatever, that was fine. It wasn’t like Martin was technically obligated to make Jon tea, let alone stick to a schedule. 

...Maybe Jon should just check on him, just to make sure he didn’t need help. Make sure he wasn’t in the midst of one of his daily fuck-ups. Just a friendly check-in with his employee. Totally normal thing for a boss to do!

Jon abandoned his emails and wandered into the break room, to see if perhaps Martin had gotten a late start and was just in the process of making the tea.

But the break room was empty. 

Well, Tim and Sasha probably just had him helping out with whatever they were doing. Probably Martin had just forgotten about their daily tea ritual, which was absolutely fine! Jon had just gotten into the routine and his brain was used to the morning dose of caffeine, and that was why he felt so weirdly off-kilter. 

Jon tracked down Sasha and Tim where they were reshelving some books in the young adult section. Martin wasn’t with them.

“Hello Tim, Sasha. Have either of you seen Martin this morning?”

“Hey, bossman!” Tim said brightly. Much too brightly for the early hour, but that was Tim, after all. “Nope, haven’t seen him.”

“Me neither,” Sasha put in, sliding a book back onto the shelf. “Maybe he’s sick? Did he call in?”

Jon shook his head. “No, I haven’t heard from him since yesterday.” Hm. This was slightly concerning. Had Martin overslept? Or had he been kidnapped or something? Or maybe he was trapped in his flat by some sort of parasitic worm infestation. Huh? Where had that last one come from?

No, Jon was just being paranoid. It was probably oversleeping. Occam’s Razor, and all that. Yep. Logical thinking. 

Jon was startled out of his mental assurances by the sound of his phone vibrating loudly in his pocket. He whipped it out (embarrassingly eagerly, in retrospect) to find a text from Martin.

Ah, so Sasha had been right after all. A stomach bug, bad enough that Martin had apparently been unable to call in sick until now. Not kidnapped. Not under siege by malicious worms. Just sick. 

Jon relayed the news to Tim and Sasha, who were staring at him expectantly. 

“Poor Martin,” Tim said with an exaggerated pout. “Hope he feels better soon! I miss our Legendary Library Assistant Trio already.” 

“Your what?”

“Yeah, Jon, could you pass along our well wishes?” Sasha asked, interrupting any kind of explanation Tim might have planned to give of the phrase “Legendary Library Assistant Trio.” 

“...Sure,” Jon said slowly. 

“Make sure you namedrop the Trio, too, so he knows how much we miss him!” Tim said, with a smirk that suggested he was very much enjoying Jon’s clear disdain for its objectively terrible name. 

“Fine, Tim, I’ll tell him the other two members of the...”

“Legendary Library Assistant Trio!”

“—of the _that_ miss him very much.” Jon frowned at Tim, which was a bad idea because Jon should have known by now that frowns just encouraged him.

“Thanks, Jon, you’re the best!” Tim cheered with his best shit-eating grin, clapping a hand on Jon’s shoulder. 

“And you’re very loud for someone who works in a library,” Jon said, removing the hand.

“That he is,” said Sasha fondly. 

“Aw, Sasha, you’re making me blush,” Tim replied, fluttering his eyebrows at her wildly. 

“Kindly keep your flirting to when you’re off the clock,” Jon said dryly. Absolutely incorrigible, these two. Though, not that he’d ever admit it, they were fun to be around even if they _were_ flirting shamelessly during work hours and never actually following through with a relationship. 

Tim made a flawless “who, me?” face, and Sasha rolled her eyes.

“Back to work, you two,” Jon told them. 

“Sir, yes sir!” Tim said with a sharp salute, and Jon shook his head as he turned to head back to his office. 

Right, time to text Martin.

— 

It took Jon an absolutely ridiculous ten minutes to figure out how to word the text. 

And he couldn’t even explain why it took so long! Just, every time he typed something up it seemed wrong somehow. Too disingenuous, or too familiar, or too formal. 

Eventually, Jon settled on: _Hello, Martin, thanks for letting me know. Tim, Sasha, and I hope you feel better soon, and they say they miss the “Legendary Library Assistant Trio” already._

Should he make the last period an exclamation mark or was that too weird?

Fuck it. Jon pressed send before he could waste any more time overthinking a goddamn “get well soon” text. There was something seriously wrong with him. 

Jon stared at his phone for several seconds waiting for a response, and then remembered that Martin was probably very busy vomiting and therefore not sitting attentively by his phone waiting for Jon to text back. 

Christ, Jon needed a distraction from this and whatever strange emotions were currently swirling around in his stomach. He decided on the tried and true distraction of his ceaselessly full email inbox, and thankfully that was enough to take his mind off things like Martin, and how Martin was doing, and if Martin had gotten the text yet. Thank god for emails, right? 

— 

The next day, Martin still wasn’t in. Or the day after that. Or the day after that. By the weekend, Jon felt like his anxiety had physically manifested into an enormous threatening storm cloud complete with lightning strikes hanging directly over his head at all times. Also, he kept getting that being-watched sensation, presumably another side effect of his strangely severe anxiety, which certainly wasn’t helping his state of mind. 

The worst part was that there wasn’t really anything to be anxious about. Martin was definitely alive, since he’d texted Jon every day, if only to say that he was unfortunately still sick and would be missing work again and thank Jon for his well wishes. And it wasn’t as if stomach bugs were life-threatening, at least for people Martin’s age. But for some reason, the thought of Martin stuck in his flat alone for so long worried Jon an extraordinary amount. 

Jon was so worried that he couldn’t concentrate at all on his normal Saturday activity (binge-watching nature documentaries). Approximately every five seconds, he felt the irresistible urge to check his phone to see if Martin had texted an update on his condition, even though it was a Saturday, which Martin also had off, meaning there was no reason for him to tell Jon he needed to miss work today. 

Eventually he resorted to texting the group chat that he, Tim, and Sasha had, which was truly an unusual occurrence, since all that usually happened in that chat was Tim sending terrible library-related memes he knew would make Jon groan and Jon refusing to react to them on principle. 

_Neither of you two have heard from Martin, have you? He hasn’t texted today since it’s not a work day, and I just want to make sure he’s okay._

Jon spent another few minutes half-watching the current nature documentary (something about insects, but he had lost the plot 20 minutes ago, or probably more accurately never had the plot to begin with) and glancing at his phone before it lit up with a message from Tim. 

_nope! if you’re so worried abt him, have you tried texting him yourself? ;)_

A winky face emoticon, really? It wasn’t like… _that_. Jon was just, you know, worried about his employee’s health. Most stomach bugs didn’t last this long, or at least that’s what the Internet had said the last seven times he’d checked.

_No, I haven’t yet. I don’t want to overstep. I’m his superior, and we just met a couple weeks ago._

This one got an immediate response.

_very true! dw jon, i’ll text him for you_   
_maybe something like “hey marto, jon is absolutely sick with worry over you but doesn’t want to overstep the impenetrable walls he’s put up around his person, so could you let me know how you’re doing and i’ll relay the message?”_

Jesus Christ, Jon was going to kill Tim. Legitimately this time. 

_Do NOT under any circumstances send that message. I WILL fire you, Tim._

_i’m copying and pasting it right now you’d better hurry!!!_

That bastard Tim was _dead_. Jon typed back as fast as he could, which wasn’t very fast because he was an awful texter. 

_DON’T send it I’ll text him_

_yay, that’s the spirit! proud of you, boss_

_I’m late but seconded!!_ said the text from Sasha that popped up soon after.

Assholes. Jon tapped over to his conversation with Martin and stared contemplatively at the keyboard. 

_Hello, Martin, I just wanted to check in and see how you were doing._

Short and sweet. Jon’s finger hovered over the send button, then swerved over to backspace. 

_Hello, Martin, we all missed you at work this week! I wanted to check in and see how you’re doing._

There, that included everyone, so Jon wasn’t singling himself out as being the one worried, even though it was objectively true that he was the only one of the three of them freaking out over it for no apparent reason. 

Jon sent it before he could second-guess (third-guess) himself, set his phone down on the coffee table, and let out an exaggerated sigh at his TV where the documentary narrator was talking now talking about some kind of carnivorous worm. 

This was fine. This was a normal amount of anxiety to have over a coworker being sick. 

Yep. Totally normal.

Jon’s phone buzzed again and he reached for it immediately. It was from Martin.

_Hey, Jon, thanks for checking in! I think I’m doing better today! I’ve been able to move out of the loo and do some reading in a nice comfy chair instead of right next to the toilet :)_

Well, that was a good sign, at least. Though Jon felt a pang of some unidentifiable emotion at the thought of Martin having been stuck huddled up by the toilet for the past week. 

But okay, Martin was fine. Mission successful. Jon could go back to his nature documentary. 

_Glad to hear that! Out of curiosity, what are you reading?_ Jon’s fingers decided to type out and send instead. 

Martin replied almost immediately, like he’d been staring at his phone waiting for Jon’s response.

_One of my Keats anthologies! It’s always a good distraction for when I’m not feeling great._

Jon could feel his lip curl the second he read the name “Keats.” God, Martin’s taste in poets was abysmal. Well, all poetry was generally drivel, but, really, Keats? It was a good thing this conversation wasn’t in person, because Jon didn’t think he’d have been able to hide his disgust well enough. Christ, he hated poetry. 

_Ah, so you’re a poetry fan, then?_

_Definitely! I love reading it, and I even write a bit sometimes, when I’m feeling creative._

_Hm, interesting._ (That was honestly the most polite response Jon could come up with.)

_...I take it you’re not much of a poetry fan, then._

_Not exactly. I prefer non-fiction. Poetry is all so...flowery. Saying a lot of words without actually meaning anything._

_Hey, poetry has tons of meaning! You just have to read within the lines a bit, do a little analysis. Non-fiction is all well and good but where’s the artistry, you know?_

Oh, it was _on_. From there, the conversation devolved into a full-on debate on the merits of poetry and eventually fiction as a whole vs. nonfiction that took the entire afternoon. By the time Jon glanced out the window, the sun was sinking below the horizon and the cloudy sky had darkened to the bluish-gray of twilight. 

Jon’s stomach growled, and he realized he hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast. Time flew when he was having fun, apparently!

_I declare a stalemate, because I would like to go get some Thai takeout. We can pick this up tomorrow, if you think you still have any more evidence for your pathetic argument._

_I was just about to say, I’ve got to go see if I can keep down some saltines. But yes, if you somehow have more evidence for YOUR pathetic argument, I’m happy to keep proving how wrong you are ;) Enjoy the Thai, Jon!_

The corners of Jon’s lips curled up almost unconsciously as he read the text, and the smile stayed on his face all the way down to the Thai restaurant.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for party rocking (aka using exclusively American spellings of words). I hope you can forgive me. All due respect to British English, but I would rather die than spell yogurt like "yoghurt."
> 
> Hope you guys enjoy this chapter! :)

Martin’s condition continued to improve through Sunday (Jon got regular updates in between bouts of their text debate, which ended up incorporating a wide variety of topics, including the objectively best pet and relative palatability of coffee), and by the time they both agreed on another stalemate for the day, Martin said he was feeling good enough to come in to work tomorrow. 

Jon felt a strange thrill of excitement about the prospect of seeing Martin in person again, which was ridiculous, since he’d only been gone a week and Jon had been texting the man all damn weekend. Seeing him physically was hardly any different. Well, it was a bit, with the way text conversations gave you much more time to formulate a response to whatever the other party had said, but still. What was it with all these inexplicable feelings crawling out of the woodwork every time Jon thought about Martin?

He decided for the sake of his brain, which tended to fixate on things like this, to bury that question under another nature documentary and then go to sleep and hope that whole deal had been magically sorted out by morning. Jon was allowed to be an optimist sometimes, okay?

His brain and the complicated tangle of Martin-related feelings that inhabited it had unfortunately (predictably) not been sorted out by morning. But it was honestly fine, because when Jon ran into the man in question in the break room on his way to make tea, he found Martin already well into the process of it, and they were able to strike up a markedly non-awkward conversation. 

“Oh, hello, Martin, glad you see you’ve made it back. Not to be too presumptuous, but does one of those happen to be for me?”

Martin looked up from where he was in the process of steeping two mugs and broke into a smile when he saw Jon. (Jon’s heart absolutely did _not_ do a little leap at that. Nope. That had been a totally normal, medically explainable heart palpitation.)

“Well...I don’t know if I could live with the embarrassment if someone caught me making tea for a known _cat person_ ,” Martin said with an exaggerated shudder.

“Hm,” Jon sniffed, schooling his face into a look of haughty disdain. “Good point. I’m now deeply considering if it’s worth the blow to my ego to accept anything from a _dog person_.”

“It really is such a shame. I suppose I should go give it to Tim or Sasha so it doesn’t go to waste,” Martin said glumly, though his eyes were practically twinkling with laughter. Good god, had Jon really just thought the word “twinkling”?

“It’s got to be Tim, then, because I happen to have it on good authority that Sasha is as irredeemably fond of cats as I am,” Jon said, allowing himself a little smirk. This was good! Banter he could do, and, in fact, highly preferred to the awkward pleasantries and small talk they’d been exchanging before. 

Martin closed his eyes and shook his head grimly. “The things you learn about a person. Just heartbreaking.”

“Indeed.”

Martin successfully kept up the pretense of despair over Sasha being a cat person for a few more seconds, before breaking into bright laughter. 

“Yes, one of them is for you, Jon, of course! You didn’t think I forgot our morning routine, did you? I’ve only been gone a week.”

“Well, I didn’t want to presume—” Jon began, but Martin waved him off as he got out the cream and sugar.

“All good! I enjoy making tea for people, and I’m happy you’ve liked it so much. I heard from Sasha that you’re quite the tea snob,” Martin said good-naturedly. He added a splash of cream and a generous spoonful of sugar to both mugs and presented one to Jon with a flourish. 

“Your tea, good sir.”

“Thank you, thank you,” Jon said, plucking the tea carefully from Martin’s hand, but before he could take a sip, Sasha burst into the break room with an unprecedented, Tim-esque level of excitement. 

Both Jon and Martin jumped a few centimeters and nearly spilled more tea on the carpet. (Yes, it did still smell faintly of Earl Grey. That was likely a permanent feature of the room at this point.)

“Hello, boys!” Sasha sang, popping open the small refrigerator in the corner of the room and rummaging for something.

“Er, hello, Sasha, what’s got you so...cheery this morning?” Jon asked, once he’d gotten over his shock at witnessing the generally calm Sasha so weirdly bubbly. 

“Oh, nothing much. Just that I met someone this weekend.” Sasha grinned. “He’s so _weird_ , I love it!”

“But...you and Tim aren’t…?” Martin said, shooting a confused look at Jon.

Jon made a frantic cutting gesture across his throat, and thankfully Martin quickly got the idea and closed his mouth. It was never a good idea to bring up a theoretical romantic relationship between Tim and Sasha — Tim always went scarily quiet until you changed the subject, and Sasha frowned and said things such as “as if” and “he’s not worth it” very huffily under her breath. As far as Jon knew, there had been one truly unfortunate hookup a few years ago that had almost ruined their friendship, and now a relationship was entirely off the cards, despite how much they appeared to flirt during work hours. He attempted to convey all of this to Martin through a very intense stare while Sasha pulled whatever it was she’d been looking for out of the fridge, and it seemed to work because Martin refrained from saying anything further. 

“How nice!” Jon said loudly instead. “How did you meet this mystery man?”

Sasha spun around, holding some yogurt, which was apparently what she’d been searching for. “I was standing in line at a cafe, and I felt like I was being watched, and when I turned around, he was sitting there at one of the tables just staring directly at me. I went over there to tell him off, you know, assert my authority as a strong, independent woman, and it turned out he was staring because he recognized me from the library! We got to chatting, and he told me his name is Michael, and that he often comes to the library to read because he loves the ambiance, and since he recognized me he just wanted to let me know that he thinks the library has a termite infestation.”

“What?” Jon interjected sharply. “Firstly, how would he know? And secondly, why wouldn’t he tell a library employee that _when he was at the library_?”

“I’m not sure why he didn’t mention it to someone when he was here, but he said he could tell it was termites because he dabbles in extermination,” Sasha explained. 

“That sounds...threatening,” said Martin. 

“Oh, no, he’s got to be the least threatening man I’ve ever met!” Sasha protested. “Maybe even less threatening than you, Martin, no offense.” 

“None taken?” 

“Anyway, he offered to show me how to get rid of a termite infestation, with a whole demonstration, and I said sure, because it’s not as if I have anything better to do on a Sunday, and he took me to this fascinating abandoned pub that was absolutely brimming with termites—there had to be thousands of them. And then he showed me how to use just a standard fire extinguisher to kill them. It works remarkably well!”

“You let a strange man take you to an abandoned, termite-infested pub because you had nothing better to do yesterday?” Jon asked, simultaneously bewildered and concerned. Sasha could sometimes be too curious for her own good, but this was extreme even for her. 

“I told you, he’s not dangerous at all! Besides, I’m right here safe and sound, aren’t I?”

“...Fair enough,” Jon said. “But please try not to get yourself killed. It would be such a pain to replace you.”

“Love you, too, Jon,” Sasha told him with a smile. “But yes, although that was definitely the weirdest first date I’ve ever been on, and I’m still not sure if that is actually how extermination is supposed to work, Michael is incredibly interesting to talk to and I think we’ll be seeing each other again soon. I got his number and everything.” 

“Wonderful,” Jon said faintly, now thinking worriedly about how he was meant to break the news to Elias that the library was allegedly infested with termites. He definitely had to verify this first. Hopefully it was just the ramblings of a strange, “interesting” man with a too-strong imagination. Otherwise...yikes.

“Yeah, um, congrats!” Martin added only slightly awkwardly. 

“Thanks!” Sasha said, and then sat down at the break room’s tiny folding table and started eating her yogurt. 

Apparently the conversation was over, which was good, because Jon didn’t have the mental bandwidth right now for anything but stressing over the possibility of termites. 

“I’ll see you later, Martin,” he said, and then fled.

Jon took a momentary detour to drop his tea off in his office, since regardless of how much he wanted to drink it, it simply wasn’t practical to carry a mug around with him on what was certain to be a long and possibly treacherous search of the entire library. Then he started his inspection.

For most of his lap around the perimeter of the library’s interior, he didn’t see anything remotely termite-esque; no droppings or wings or dead bodies or whatever else you were supposed to see if they were eating away somewhere in the walls. But when he reached the very back of the library, near the study desks, and peered down to inspect the wainscoting, there was something...crawling along it. 

Oh, fuck. Jon bent down even further to get a closer look, probably looking like an absolute weirdo to the people minding their business reading at the desks. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a spider (which was a phrase Jon would never, ever have predicted himself thinking, given his somewhat debilitating fear of them). Yep, that was definitely a termite. 

Also, it smelled very strange, like disinfectant with a faint underlying tinge of…sickness. Why did this termite smell like a hospital? 

Jon sniffed carefully around the area, probably looking even more like a weirdo (the sacrifices he made for this library). It actually seemed more like the wall/floor of the library was what smelled like disinfectant, and the termite smelled like a walking disease. Jon recoiled and buried his nose in his sleeve at the suddenly overpowering scent of sickness. 

Well, that was disgusting and somewhat worrying. Jon had no idea if termites were supposed to smell that bad, but it didn’t exactly seem normal. 

Great. This was just great. He watched the termite as it meadered its way across the wall away from him, passing several tiny piles of presumably termite wings, and started mentally writing the script for his conversation with Elias about this. 

How to break this gently… Maybe he should butter Elias up somehow first, tell him how amazingly his new hire was adjusting and what a good choice Martin had been. Or something. 

At the edge of Jon’s vision, the termite caught the faint light of one of the desk lamps, flashing an odd creamy white, and for a second Jon could have sworn that it looked like some kind of sickly, bulbous worm. But when he blinked again, it was back to being brown and tiny like any other termite. 

Christ, maybe Jon needed to get more sleep. He rubbed at his eyes and thought longingly of the beautifully caffeinated tea getting cold on his desk. 

But there was no time for tea; he had to find Elias.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the weird and entirely inconsistent upload schedule! I got pretty busy for a few days, and I'm uploading these chapters as I write them, so when I post them kind of depends on how much time I have. But I doubt it'll ever be more than a week between updates, because I'm very excited about writing this fic! :)
> 
> Let me know if y'all enjoyed his chapter <3

The Magnus Library was getting tented. Immediately.

Elias had seemed strangely unconcerned about it, but he’d agreed to call an exterminator that day to check it out, and said exterminator had taken one look at the area where Jon had seen the termite before turning to the two of them with wide eyes and saying that they needed to take care of this infestation right now, immediately. No time to move any fragile, old books, if that was even a thing that needed doing. 

Jon barely had time to make the announcement that the library was unfortunately going to be closing early, as in right then and there, and let his assistants know what the situation was before all four of them were ushered right out the front doors by several new, harried-looking exterminators.

Elias appeared through the doors shortly afterward, told them all that they were getting a week of vacation while whatever the hell that was currently happening happened, and disappeared just as quickly. 

Jon, Martin, Tim, and Sasha stared blankly at each other as they stood in a lopsided circle on the sidewalk.

“Um,” said Martin, “what just happened?”

“I think...Michael was right about the termites,” Jon said, his brain still attempting to process the last ten minutes. 

“Who’s Michael?” asked Tim, and Sasha made urgent shushing motions at Jon and Martin from across the circle. Typical Tasha drama. (Tasha was Jon’s brilliant name for Tim and Sasha’s relationship, or really, lack thereof. It had yet to catch on.)

“Oh, just some exterminator I know!” Sasha said airily. “Never mind about him.”

Tim shrugged. “Whatever, all I care about is that Elias just gave us a whole _week_ of vacation! I think I’m going to take that Malaysia trip I’ve been talking about. God bless termites, right?”

“...Sure,” Jon said. “Have...fun with that.”

“Oh, I definitely will,” Tim said, grinning. “Sasha, want to come over and help me pack?”

“Of course!” Sasha waved at Jon and Martin, linked her arm with Tim’s, and dragged him off down the sidewalk.

“See you next week, boss, Martin!” Tim called over his shoulder.

“Bye!” Martin shouted back, as Tim and Sasha were somehow already a significant distance away.

Well. That had happened. 

“So,” said Martin, turning to Jon. “This has been an exciting day.” 

“Indeed,” Jon said, as dryly as he could manage. “Who knew a few tiny insects could scare an exterminator so badly?”

“Yeah, they really did look worried. I hope the library’s okay! I know I haven’t been here nearly as long as the rest of you, but I really do like this place. Would be a shame if it collapsed from termite damage so soon.”

“Christ, I hope not. Looking for another job, in this economy?”

Martin’s smile looked a little pained. “Yep, this job wasn’t exactly easy to find.”

“Well, I’m...glad you found it,” Jon said honestly. Probably too honestly. Oh god, that was entirely too much warmth in his tone!

“Me too.” Martin’s smile now looked markedly less pained. 

“Well!” Jon said, clearing his throat. “We should probably stop loitering outside and breathing in the variety of chemicals those worried exterminators are almost certainly spraying right now.”

“Right, yeah, we’ve got to...protect those lungs!” Martin said awkwardly.

But neither of them moved.

“Hey, Jon, I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Martin said. “Um, would you maybe want to grab some coff—”

“Sorry I have to go I just remembered I left the stove on this morning!” Jon interjected, far too loud and too quick and too panicky. “Uh, see you in a week, Martin!”

And then, like a coward, he fled. 

— 

Jon spent most of his week of “vacation” alternating between beating himself up over ruining his chance with Martin and beating himself up over getting so ridiculously panicked at the thought of getting asked out by someone he wasn’t even interested in. Because he was only interested in Martin as a friend. Right? Jon was at least 90% sure. Okay, maybe 70. Anyway, how he _should_ have handled that disastrous interaction was by letting Martin say his piece, and then politely declining, and then nothing would have changed and Jon wouldn’t be sitting there staring uselessly at Martin’s old text messages all weekend, trying to convince himself that he hadn’t completely ruined their friendship. 

Friendship, because they were _friends_. Jon wasn’t in love with Martin. 

Was he?

No! Of course he wasn’t. The difference between wanting to be someone’s friend and wanting to be in a romantic relationship with them was difficult to parse sometimes, what with Jon’s pesky lack of sexual attraction, but this was definitely a case of the former. 

Yep. Jon was just upset because he’d panicked and probably destroyed any chance of a real friendship with Martin. 

Jon turned on a nature documentary, as this was the usual next step in his daily routine of overthinking the Martin Incident, and tried to focus on the birds and their migration. He was only moderately successful. 

— 

On Sunday, Elias called to let Jon know that the tenting was finished and the Magnus Library would be open again tomorrow. 

On Monday, Jon stood in front of the library’s marble steps and convinced himself it was _not_ worth quitting his job and running away to France just to avoid having to interact with Martin again. It just wasn’t practical! He didn’t even speak French!

When he finally persuaded his legs to make their way up the steps and through the doors, Jon ran directly into Elias. 

“Hello, Jon,” Elias said pleasantly. “I hope you had a nice impromptu vacation.”

“Mmmm,” Jon said vaguely.

“Glad to hear that,” Elias continued. “With regards to the termites, we were very lucky you found them when you did. Evidently, they were an especially nasty species, but the exterminators were able to take care of them before they could do much damage to the library. Thankfully, the actual structure of the building was hardly damaged, and most of the statements were unharmed.”

“That’s great to hear. Wait, statements?”

Elias looked at Jon curiously. “What do you mean, ‘statements’?”

Hadn’t he just said—? 

“You just said that most of the ‘statements’ weren’t harmed,” Jon said, confused. He couldn’t think of any materials they had in the library that could be classified as “statements.” 

Elias’s brow wrinkled. “I’m not quite sure what you’re saying, Jon. I said that most of the library’s _books_ were unharmed.”

“Oh. Right. Sorry, of course, books. I must have just misheard you.” Jon could have sworn he’d heard “statements.” Maybe he needed to get his ears cleaned.

“No harm done,” Elias said lightly. “Well, I’ll let you get to work. The exterminators did move around a fair amount of books, so those all need to be reshelved. I believe some of your assistants are already sorting through them.” 

Jon nodded, taking the hint and his leave. 

Tim and Martin were indeed already standing before a massive, haphazard stack of books in the middle of the floor in front of the circulation desk. Both of them were frowning slightly, and Tim was extremely sunburned. Apparently he had gone through with his Malaysia trip. 

“Hello, Tim, Martin,” Jon said politely, determined to act maturely. He could be so mature. 

“Hey, boss!” Tim replied, his frown disappearing into a friendly smile. 

“I see you had a...fruitful vacation,” Jon observed.

“Hah, yes, I may not have applied as much sunblock as I should have,” Tim said ruefully. “But Malaysia was amazing! You should both go sometime.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Jon said mildly, though it was unlikely to ever happen. Far too hot and sunny in Malaysia, clearly. 

Martin, who had been studiously not looking at Jon during this whole interaction, cleared his throat. “So, these books?”

“Right, yes, let’s organize them into which section of the library they came from, so it’s simpler to put them back.”

Tim and Martin agreed, but before they could start actually doing that,   
behind them, someone said, “Hey, guys!”

Jon turned around to see...a stranger? He glanced at Tim and Martin to see if they might know who this strange woman was, but their faces both looked as blank as Jon’s probably was. 

“Sorry, do we...know you?” Martin asked apologetically.

“Do you—what are you talking about?” the woman asked, sounding confused. “It’s me, Sasha?”

“Sasha?” Jon, Tim, and Martin cried in unison. 

“Uh, yes?”

“But. You. Your hair? Your clothes?” Tim sputtered. 

“I decided it was time for a change, you know?” allegedly-Sasha said, fluffing her now chin-length, bright purple hair and tugging at the cuffs of her pastel pink suit jacket. 

“...Right,” Tim said slowly. “You look...good?”

“And you look sunburned,” Sasha shot back, narrowing her eyes. “I think my change is better.”

“But I—actually, yeah, that’s fair,” Tim said.

Whatever was going on between those two aside, now that Jon was looking closer, Sasha definitely was still Sasha. The new look wasn’t bad; it would just take a bit of time to get used to. 

“It’s great to have you back, Sasha. Now, we have an enormous pile of books to clean up, so perhaps you can continue this conversation during lunch?” Jon said, raising his eyebrows at her and Tim. 

“Of course, Jon,” Sasha said smoothly, and made her way over to the pile to help.

Jon didn’t realize it at the time, but this had been a grave mistake, because it meant that while Tim and Sasha “continued this conversation” at lunch, they went outside to talk and left Jon alone with Martin in the break room.

Shit. Okay. Jon just had to subtly sneak out while Martin was busy microwaving his curry. Simple.

He took one step toward the door, and almost immediately from behind him came the sound of Martin saying, “Wait.”

Oh, Christ. 

Jon turned around and pasted on his most pleasant smile, the one reserved for special occasions such as placating the parent of a child who Martin made cry during Storytime. “Yes?”

“I just wanted to say, about what I said last week—”

“I’m sorry for panicking. It was...extremely unprofessional of me,” Jon said professionally, interrupting Martin. 

“Oh, no, Jon, you’re completely fine. It was a totally weird thing to ask, not at all appropriate, and I hope you can forgive me. I won’t do anything like that again, I promise.”

Oh, thank god. They were fine. 

“Of course, don’t worry about it,” Jon said, hoping he didn’t sound too relieved.

“Great! Um. Friends?”

“...The TV show?”

Martin snorted, and then quickly pretended like he hadn’t. “No, no, I mean like, we’re friends again? Uh, I mean, we don’t have to be, like I totally understand if you just want to keep everything all business, nothing wrong with th—”

“Yes, Martin, we can be friends again,” Jon interjected, ignoring the glow of happiness that seemed to be radiating from his heart at the revelation that he hadn’t totally ruined everything with Martin. Oh, come on, “glow of happiness,” seriously? Martin’s love of poetry was clearly some kind of infectious disease that was making Jon’s internal monologue sound unbearably soppy. 

“Right! Great! I’m going to go microwave my curry now,” Martin announced. 

Well, clearly everything wasn’t exactly back to normal, but it was a start. 

After lunch, Jon and his assistants finished cleaning up the rest of the book pile and diverting people who wanted to know what the book pile was for and if they could jump into it like a nice pile of fall leaves (they could not). As Jon wound his way through the stacks to shelve the last of the mystery books, he felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle and that now almost familiar being-watched sensation settle over him. But, like always, when looked over his shoulder and peered through the bookshelves, no one was there.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> School is kicking my ass a little bit so apologies on the longish wait for this chapter! I promise I want to be writing this much more than I want to be doing schoolwork but sometimes it Be Like That, you know?

Later that week, Jon came into work bright and early, unlocked the door to his office in preparation for a productive session of checking email, and was instead greeted by a mysterious, somewhat crumpled envelope sitting innocently in the middle of his desk. 

Jon eyed the envelope hesitantly. The door to his office had been locked since he’d left work yesterday evening, and the envelope definitely hadn’t been there then. God only knew how it had gotten here, and God only knew what was in it. More evil termites, perhaps? Or maybe it was some kind of “you’re fired” notice from Elias? But no, Elias was far too posh to fire someone with an envelope so crumpled. 

Jon got out a pen from his desk drawer and poked the envelope, then cringed backward in anticipation. Fortunately, nothing happened. If it was full of termites, they were probably dead, which meant it was fine. The fact that Jon was considering finding a mysterious envelope filled with dead termites on his desk “fine” said something about how his brain was doing these days, but he didn’t have the energy to worry about things like mental “health” and “wellbeing.”

When Jon worked up the courage to open it, he found that the envelope was not, in fact, filled with dead evil termites, but a letter, which he now realized probably should have been his first guess.

_If you’re reading this, I’m dead,_ the first line of the letter read.

Uh. What?

_Just kidding,_ said the second line. _I’ve been fired by Elias for my investigations of him. Presumably. He could have also killed me, but I doubt he’s brave enough to do something like that, even with what I’ve found out._

Investigations? Found out? What the hell _was_ this letter? Was this another Tim prank or something? It seemed slightly too sophisticated for that, though, and after the Spaghetti Incident, Jon had made Tim promise never to prank him again on pain of immediate termination. This was way too weird and lame a prank for Tim to risk his job for. 

_So, if you do happen to be reading this, my advice is simply to be careful. I do not know how much Elias knows, but if he has fired me, I’m guessing it is everything. Do NOT under ANY circumstances tell him or anyone else about this letter, or you’ll certainly be fired, too, and in this economy, I predict that is not something you want to experience. Or something even worse could happen to you; Elias is a dangerous, unpredictable man, and I cannot say for sure what he will do if he knows you know about what I know about him._

_Godspeed and good luck,_

_Gertrude Robinson_

Gertrude Robinson...That name sounded vaguely familiar. Wait, yes, Gertrude had been Jon’s predecessor, hadn’t she? What had Elias said? Something about her having been “let go” for some kind of serious transgression. And then he’d immediately moved on to salary negotiation and Jon had instantly stopped thinking about his mysteriously fired predecessor. 

This was ridiculous. Elias, a “dangerous, unpredictable” man? Elias was the politest and most predictable person Jon knew. Clearly Gertrude had just had some sort of vendetta against Elias, for...some reason, and decided to terrorize her replacement with vague warnings for...some reason, and had gotten this letter onto Jon’s desk in his locked office...somehow. 

Yep. Jon had been correct: this was just a bizarre prank. The work of a former Magnus Library employee rather than Tim, but a prank nonetheless. 

He crumpled up the letter and the envelope and started to toss them both into the garbage, but then thought better of it and shoved the mess of paper all the way to the back of his desk drawer. You know, just in case. Not at all because he was taking this seriously and worrying about a possible enormous Elias-related conspiracy. What if his coworkers were involved somehow? Were they spying on him? Was this feeling of being watched that kept creeping up his spine (like it was right now in this ostensibly empty office) because someone actually _was_ watching him? 

No, no, no, now Jon was just being paranoid. Whatever Gertrude had “found out” about Elias was likely nothing serious. She was probably just being hysterical—oh wow, Jon was being super misogynistic, wasn’t he? Damn, he needed to work on that. _Anyway_. No reason to worry about this.

Time to check email!

Jon successfully distracted himself from thinking about the letter for a good thirty minutes while he went through the dozens of emails that had magically appeared overnight. Most were relatively boring, but there was one from what seemed to be one of the exterminators who’d taken care of the library’s termite problem, asking if the library had any books on rare worms, wasp nests, or “weirdly sentient ant colonies.” (Jon ignored the typical lack of normalcy in the email and simply replied that the library had a fairly large insect collection which would likely have what he was looking for.) 

Soon enough, though, Jon ran out of emails to bury himself in. It seemed that now he would have to go do actual work, or at least bother his assistants in the name of being a good manager. This was a highly effective technique that Jon often applied when he didn’t feel up to doing anything useful, such as right now. 

Exercising his managerial powers was a great distraction for a while, until lunch break, when the hierarchy of power was flattened and Jon could no longer boss his assistants around. Despite the fact that Jon had been annoying them for the past few hours, Tim and Sasha were nice enough people that they still invited Jon to their normal monthly Night on the Town, as Tim called it, usually accompanied by an obnoxiously expansive spreading of his arms like he was a terrible DJ attempting to bring up the energy of a lethargic crowd. Not that Jon would know anything about DJs. (If Tim and Sasha ever learned that Jon had been to parties in uni, it would ruin his entire work persona.)

Unfortunately, they also invited Martin. 

Jon wasn’t exactly sure why he felt this was unfortunate. He and Martin had made up. Right? Things were totally fine between them. Right? 

Okay, Martin might still be bringing Jon tea most days of the week, but that was about it. They didn’t have any conversations in the break room during lunch, and they definitely didn’t have any more fun, ridiculously long text debates. Jon was not exactly an expert, but it felt like something had changed in their friendship dynamic, and not for the better. So a Night on the Town with Martin there too would be a little weird, since Tim and Sasha would inevitably get wrapped up in their flirting-that-wasn’t-really-flirting-but-actually-yes-it-was-but-neither-of-them-wanted-to-admit-it and Jon would have to talk to Martin. 

So Jon tried to get out of it. 

“I would love to come, but I actually have a prior engagement tonight,” he said apologetically. 

“Oh yeah? What prior engagement?” Sasha asked, crossing her arms over her purple blazer that was somehow the exact shade as her hair. Her new look still surprised Jon every once in a while, but it was honestly growing on him. 

“Uh,” said Jon, having not expected to be challenged. “You know. Personal...business.” 

“Watching nature documentaries doesn’t count as personal business, boss,” Tim said, smirking at Jon like the bastard he was. See, this was what happened when you let people know things about you! They used them against you and forced you to be social.

There was really no coming back from a total evisceration like that, so Jon said, “Fine, I’ll be there.” 

“Hell yeah! First Night on the Town with our buddy Marto!” Tim said, throwing an arm around Martin.

“It’s really just Martin,” said Martin, looking slightly beleaguered. 

So that was that. At least it promised a brand new distraction from the letter Jon was studiously Not Thinking About. 

— 

The bar was noisy, as usual. The bar also smelled weird, as usual, but it was a different weird smell than the usual weird smell of a variety of alcohol with a tinge of sweat and something else gross but unnameable. This weird smell was cleaner than that, sharp and almost like disinfectant—wait, this was the same hospital smell as the back of the library where Jon had found the termites, wasn’t it? Huh. Maybe the bar had started using a new formula for whatever disinfectant they used to wipe things down? It was a little eerie, and Jon found himself checking the floor and seat of the booth they were sitting in for termites, but of course there were none. 

“What are you looking for?” Martin asked over the bar noise, leaning towards Jon. They were on the same side of the booth, facing Tim and Sasha, because of course they were. 

“Nothing!” Jon said quickly, since there was no way he was explaining that train of thought from weird hospital smell to termites right now. 

“Oh. Cool!” Martin said. “This is fun, right?”

That was certainly one word for it. Jon usually tolerated these Nights on the Town because it was fairly fun to talk shit with Tim and Sasha and/or watch their not-flirting in the wild, but having Martin here changed the dynamic entirely and Jon was still too stressed about the stupid fucking prank letter to really enjoy sitting here drinking terrible beer and considering how badly he had fucked up by literally running away from Martin asking him out. 

“Yep. Definitely!” Jon told Martin, trying for a smile. 

“Great!” said Martin, too loudly.

“Great!” said Jon, also too loudly.

They took a sip of their shitty beers in unison, noticed the other doing so, and attempted not to laugh. 

“Is the beer always this shitty?” Martin asked, taking another experimental sip and making a face.

“Oh, yeah,” Jon said. “Literally every time. Tim and Sasha have impressively bad taste in beers and bars in general.”

“Hey, don’t be a hater just ‘cause all you like to drink is fancy scotches!” Tim interjected from across the booth, interrupting his conversation with Sasha just to be annoying. 

“Tim, I drink plenty of beer and I also think this is terrible,” Martin said apologetically. 

Tim collapsed dramatically backward into his seat with his hand over his heart. “Marto, you wound me so.”

“ _Thank_ you,” Jon said emphatically, ignoring Tim and his shenanigans. “Finally someone agrees with me.”

“Happy to help,” Martin said with a smile, and then turned to Tim to uselessly explain that, again, his name was Martin, please. 

After that, it seemed like something had snapped back into place. Jon and Martin spent the rest of the night mercilessly insulting Tim and Sasha’s taste in alcohol, and then mercilessly insulting each other’s taste in alcohol, and then mercilessly insulting Tim’s decision to name these outings Nights on the Town (why would it be on the “town” when they went to the same bar every time, huh?). 

By the time they left the pub, Jon had been so successfully distracted from the letter that he didn’t think about it once. 

At least, not until the next morning.


End file.
